


It's a shock to my system

by whateverrrrwhatever



Series: practice prompts [20]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak in Love, Established Relationship, Everyone's a Lil Dramatic, M/M, Post-Canon, Richie and Eddie Together in LA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: A ficlet written for the prompt "throwing away their piles of tissues when they have a cold."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: practice prompts [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626685
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	It's a shock to my system

**Author's Note:**

> [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and I have decided to work our way through a list of prompts over the next however long, which means I’ll be writing little unedited ficlets periodically and sometimes sharing them here.
> 
> This is my first Reddie fic and I'm still trying to get them right. Feedback is very welcome!

Richie’s been working at home all week, holed up in the office without pants, insistent that he works best with the fan on high and all the windows open, to keep his mind sharp.

“It’s feng shui, Eds,” he said earlier that week, long arms waving in a vague, sweeping circle, a gesture that encompassed everything and absolutely nothing. 

“It’s bullshit, Richie,” Eddie said.

The room looked like it was cut and pasted the Fall 2016 Pottery Barn catalogue two years ago and it’d slowly entropied ever since. There was -- still is, Eddie would bet his fucking car on it -- a dirty pair of Richie’s socks poking out from between the couch cushions, the ones with the red and blue stripes at the top. The objets d’art that had one graced the coffee table -- an idiotic shallow bowl of wicker balls and fucking pussy willow branches in a glass vase -- were piled in the corner, covered with a disgusting layer of dust.

“It’s feng shui,” Richie insisted. “It helps my process.”

“It’s nothing,” Eddie said, but for once, he left it at that. Richie had started to look a little wild-eyed, only days out from a gig at the Dirty Bird.

Now, the day after, Eddie’s exhausted. Richie hadn’t gone until well after 11, and even though his set was short, they hadn’t made it home until almost 2 a.m., after congratulations and gladhanding, introductions and business cards, a round of celebratory shots. Eddie had ended the night leaning against the bar waiting for Richie to say his final goodbyes, holding their jackets and dying to go home. He was tired and cranky. His feet hurt. He was so damn happy and so fucking proud.

Richie had killed it. He’d started off a little nervous -- he was already a sweaty guy, but he kept wiping his hands on his jeans, flicking the microphone cord out of his way.

“So, uh,” Richie said into the microphone. Eddie watched him through the neon kitsch of the lights, the pointless palm fronds in the foreground. Richie had been wearing another one of his stupid patterned shirts, even though his agent begged him to dress professionally -- something that will look good on camera, Richie had echoed snidely, and picked three of the loudest shirts out of his closet. 

This one looked like a shattered Mondrian, and Eddie fucking hated it. That night, he’d especially hated how broad Richie’s shoulders looked, how the sleeves were cut at just the right length to show how big his arms were. He was standing upright for once, instead of shrinking down to look at Eddie, and he looked so good Eddie wanted to fuck him into next week.

“I’m Richie Trashmouth Tozier,” Richie said. Scattered cheers erupted in the crowd, and Richie grinned a little, swallowing. “Thanks. I’m Richie. Some of you may remember me from the F.I.L.T.H. tour.” There’s light laughter in the crowd. “Or my special, Last Year’s Bitches Are This Year’s Apologies, where I exposed my shitty taste in music and my shittier taste in one night stands.” Richie looked out into the crowd, searching, and Eddie knew he couldn’t see anything at all, with the spotlight shining that bright onstage. He looked back anyway.

“Shit, some of you maybe have even seen me in that one YouTube clip that won’t die. How many of you know the Jolly Rancher story?” A collective groan rippled through the crowd. Eddie hadn’t seen it and still hasn’t, and from the brief summary he’s read, he never will. He doesn’t want to vomit all over his laptop. Richie chuckled a little, granting his audience a humorless grin. “Yeah, that one. I feel like I should apologize. But I get paid every time you click on it, so fuck you, I’m not sorry.

“The thing is…” Richie flicked the mic cord again, looking down at his feet for a moment, nodding. Eddie held his breath, something lurching and wriggling in his chest, the same scared and happy feeling as when he got on the plane, as when he knocked on Richie's door, as when he turned around in that shitty restaurant to find Richie standing in the doorway, Eddie’s brain scattering and refracting with forgotten memories. “I met the love of my life when I was eight years old. He’s here in the crowd tonight.”

After that, the audience fell silent and still, the low conversations and clinking glasses melting away into rapt attention, but Richie kept talking, steady and brave.

++

Eddie’s key sticks a little in the lock when he lets himself in. He shucks his loafers off by the door and hangs up his jacket, wandering further into the house in socked feet. His next stop is the kitchen to wash his hands and drain a glass of water. He drops the empty in the sink and fills a fresh one to carry with him to the office.

The door’s closed, which isn’t unusual -- sometimes, Richie needs to cut himself off from the rest of the house to avoid distraction. The kitchen and the TV and the outdoors are all right there, much more appealing than trying to do some fucking work. Not to mention the bedroom, Richie had explained, waggling his eyebrows. Amirite, Eddie?

Eddie had rolled his eyes -- aren’t comedians supposed to be funny, Richie? -- but they’d ended up there anyway, and he was the one who’d made Richie laugh, and then gasp and cry out, tangled together in the sheets on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

He knocks lightly, and pushes the door open -- and stops, grip tightening on the glass, all his instincts telling him to turn and run.

“Hi, Ebbie,” Richie says, voice muffled and thick. He turns to face Eddie with rheumy red eyes, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders even though it’s no less than a comfortable 75 degrees, indoors and out. He’s shivery and flushed, and surrounded by a moat of used Kleenex, another pile at his elbow on the desk.

“Richie, what the fuck.” Eddie doesn’t move from the door.

“I think I bight be coming bown with sobthing,” Richie says pitifully. He pouts a little, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“No shit,” Eddie shouts. “What the fuck are you still doing up? What is all this shit on the floor?”

“I know,” Richie sniffs. “I just wanteb to finish this part. I hab all ob these ideas after last night…”

Eddie sighs. Richie turns to muffle a cough in the blanket. His nose is red and running. A stray curl is stuck to his forehead, sweaty and slick. It makes Eddie want to yell more, or run away, or move back to New York, where he can be miserable and celibate and alone, but at least then he’d never have to deal with another human being’s bodily functions invading his own home again. But... well, if he’s being honest, he likes a few of Richie’s bodily functions, maybe a lot, and he’s learning to be okay with a few others.

But right now… Eddie looks at Richie, coughing and contagious, and he feels the old, familiar fear settling between his ribs, freezing his diaphragm, a tightness in his throat he can’t quite shake.

Last night, Richie had turned to him in the car on the way home, head tilted back against the headrest. His eyelashes had looked fucking ridiculous against his cheeks, shadows shifting as they passed through flashes of the sodium streetlight glow.

“I was so fucking nervous up there,” Richie said. He was wearing his glasses again. A new pair, but just the same frames as the old ones.

“You were really good.” Eddie flicked the turn signal on as he rolled up to the stoplight, waiting to get on the freeway in the middle of nowhere, the two of them only traffic on the road. 

“Thanks,” Richie said, letting his hand come to rest beside Eddie’s on the console. Eddie hadn’t ever regretted his insistence on driving a stick until he’d come to LA and he and Richie finally sorted their shit out -- partly because Richie made the stupidest fucking jokes every time they got in the car together, and partly because it was virtually impossible to hold his hand on the road.

Richie turned away to look out the passenger window as they merged onto the freeway, joining the fleet of headlights zipping through the valley, headed toward the foggy hills. 

“You know,” he said, clearing his throat, still turned toward the window. “For some reason, I thought after we killed that fucking clown and you almost fucking died--” his voice cracks on the word “--that I wouldn’t be afraid anymore. Of anything.”

“Richie,” Eddie said, glancing between his tousled hair and the road ahead. “What the--”

“I was wrong.” Richie shook his head, laughing a little and sniffing, and from the driver’s seat, Eddie couldn’t tell if he was crying or not. Eddie thought he might be. He looked around for a place to pull off, but he’d gotten himself stuck in the fast lane, boxed in by a pushy Suburban and a Prius waffling between 50 and 80 miles per hour. 

“Fuck,” he said, flipping on the turn signal. He brushed a hand against Richie’s shoulder, but had to hurry back to the gear shift. “Rich, I--”

“I’m still afraid of all the same stupid shit.” Richie laughed wetly, and then he did turn back toward Eddie -- not exactly crying, but his eyes were shining and his smile tugged down at one corner, wavering. “But maybe not doing what I was afraid of was a hell of a lot scarier than getting the fuck over myself and doing it anyway.”

Eddie had let out a long, low breath, thinking about New York and Derry, Myra and his mother. Thinking about Richie onstage and singling him out in the crowd, belonging to each other. Thinking about Richie, sitting next to him as they drive up through the scrubby chaparral on the narrowing highway, fog drifting over them and blurring the taillights in the distance, veiling the Los Angeles Basin and its sprawling lights in the rear window. Thinking about Richie’s hand as it comes to rest on his knee, the low music still playing in the dark.

“Yeah. Yeah, buddy,” Eddie had said, nodding. “I know what you mean.”

Now, Eddie looks at Richie, surrounded by a snotty, disgusting drift of used tissues, and he thinks about what it means to be scared of something and do it anyway, out of love for someone else.

“Come on, Richie. You’re a fucking mess,” Eddie says gently. Richie frowns at him, petulant, but doesn’t even try to deny it. “You need to get in bed.”

“I’b fine, Ebbie. Really,” Richie insists, but he’s swaying in his chair a little. He sniffs, wet and slurpy, and Eddie does everything in his power not to vomit, or run screaming from the house. He shudders a little, but Richie either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it.

Eddie gestures at the pile of tissues at his feet. "You've been blowing your nose all day. These are everywhere."

"Feng shui, Ebs." Richie attempts a wobbly smile.

“Don’t be an asshole. You look miserable,” Eddie says. Richie squares his shoulders, frown quickly turning into a stubborn glare, like he’s about to dig his heels in, and Eddie’s always ready for an argument -- just not today. Richie looks pale and clammy, except for the feverish rosy flush of his cheeks, angry like a sunburn. Eddie wants to walk closer, press a hand to his forehead, ease the discomfort in his tense jaw, in his furrowed brow, with a touch.

He can’t bring himself to do it, not yet, but he can try his best to get Richie to rest. “Let me take care of you.”

And like that, Richie deflates, shoulders sagging into an exhausted slump of defeat. The blanket slips off of one shoulder. “Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.”

“Get your ass in bed,” Eddie snaps.

“Ooh. Should hab leb with that,” Richie says, standing, and swans past Eddie on his way out the door, still clutching the grimy blanket around his shoulders. He doesn’t stop for a kiss. Eddie’s grateful -- Richie’s an asshole, but he’s the most thoughtful, loving asshole Eddie knows.

“I’m not getting near you and your disgusting germs,” Eddie calls after him. “But I’ll bring you soup in a couple minutes.”

“Aw, Ebs! You must lob me,” Richie calls over his shoulder as he disappears into the bedroom.

“I must,” Eddie mutters under his breath. He can hear the soft whump of Richie flinging himself on the bed and he sighs, looking around the disgusting office, the piles of tissues and empty mugs, the cough drop wrappers. He grabs the trash can and starts with the tissues. Maybe he holds his breath, and maybe he changes his clothes and scrubs his hands for twice as long as he needs to after. 

But sometimes you do those kinds of things, for the people you love. He thinks that maybe he’s finally figuring out how, now that there’s someone worth figuring it out for.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "About Love" by MARINA.
> 
> Find me on twitter as [whateverrrrisay](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay) and on tumblr as [whateverrrrwhatever](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/).


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